Ono clears the air on why R.Mika’s butt slap was removed in Street Fighter V

When Capcom silently (or attempted to) removed the “butt slap” from R.Mika’s special, the fans of the character as well as fans of the game called foul. They assumed that Capcom had been approached by some group or those so-called “SJW’s” who demanded that they remove that from the game. And while the deed was done, Capcom was mum on why the actual change had occurred, but for the most part, it was simply deemed as censorship.

However in a recent interview with Brazilian wesbite UOL, Yoshinori Ono has finally stated why the “butt slap” was removed from the game. And thanks to NeoGAF member Moraizen, we have a translation of the conversation.

Originally, the fighter Rainbow Mika slapped her butt during one attack sequence, but the action was removed. That led some fans to question if some kind of ‘censorship’ had occurred. “We didn’t make any change because of external influences”, reassures Ono. “Those changes came up internally. We decided to remove that because we want the biggest possible number of people to play, and we don’t want to have something in the game that might make someone uncomfortable”.

But Ono, I can’t see something that is shown only for a matter of seconds at any given time harassing anyone, yet that would also indicate that a large number of R.Mika players would have had to complain about this. Let along not changing her outfit which is still super revealing and her “butt” is still shown, so I don’t get the reasoning here. Ono goes on to state that Capcom likely will start, or in Cammy’s case has already done so, attempt to remove anything else that may be deemed offensive to others.

The objective, according the producer, is to have characters that people like, and not put them off the game. “Probably we won’t be able to remove everything that could offend someone. But our goal is, at least, to reduce that number as much as possible so that they think ‘Ok, there is this issue here, but it is within the limits’. We want that everyone can play and enjoy without worrying about anything else”, he says.

I’m not 100% on either reply, it seems like backtracking to me. Why take all this time doing design work, which isn’t fast nor simply, only to change it out and after several betas? On top of that why introduce new characters that have “features” that may be considered offensive, only to remove them later? I understand that Ono is doing some damage control here but I don’t think we’re getting the entire truth here.

What do you think about the matter?

Street Fighter V released on February 16, 2016, for the PlayStation 4 and PC.

About The Author

Keith Mitchell is the Founder and Editor in Chief of The Outerhaven. A grizzled IT professional during the day, but a passionate lover of video games after his 9-5 grid. Loves playing the Dark Souls series and has been gaming since he was 6 years old. Available for podcasts upon request.